West Sussex Guitar Orchestra offers Festival of Chichester concert

It will include excerpts from The Fairy Queen by Purcell, Ketelbey’s exotic In a Persian Market and Piazzolla’s intense Libertango – all in the resonant acoustic setting of St John’s Chapel. Solos and small ensembles will add variety to a wide-ranging celebration of the

Guitar on Monday, June 23 at 7.30pm. Tickets £5-£12 from The Novium.

Linda said: “The guitar orchestra has been going since 2015. It grew out of the guitar club. There were ensembles at the club before but I took over but we started in a more formal way around about that time. We started rehearsing away from the club and started playing at festivals. We've been doing concerts for the last five years as part of the Festival of Chichester and then some other places too.”

The orchestra, as the name suggests, is exclusively guitars: “At the moment we have got nine members. The maximum we have had is 12 and we went down to five and then grew back up again. But at the moment we have nine very dedicated players that come from the local area. Someone comes from Petersfield and someone from Petworth. They are from all over and we meet up on a Monday evening and have a rehearsal. We're all members of the West Sussex Guitar Club but we are separate from them. I arrange the repertoire and conduct.

“Guitar orchestras are quite localised. If you've got a guitar club, there tends to be a group of people that get together and play. There are groups in Bristol and Brighton but it is actually quite unusual. But we get to play some really nice arrangements of orchestral pieces.

“For this concert, we're playing a lovely arrangement of Purcell. It's quick and busy so it works really well for us. We are playing a good variety of things. I'm calling it Purcell to Piazzolla, and we will have some interesting sound effects. The guitar can be a wonderful percussion instrument. You can get a huge range of sounds just by tapping. We will be using some extended techniques for the Libertango.”

Linda is delighted that her daughter Zoe, a former Sussex Young Musician of the Year, will be joining the concert as a guest soloist.